Washington, Sept 18: It’s not just humans who find yawning contagious, for man’s best friend, dogs too can show empathy – by catching yawns off their owners.
According to the study’s researchers, the findings suggest that domestic dogs have the capacity for a fundamental form of empathy.
The phenomenon, called contagious yawning, has been found only in humans and other primates such as chimpanzees and is thought to relate to our ability to empathize with others.
Researcher Ramiro Joly-Mascheroni, a psychologist at Birkbeck, University of London first tested the phenomenon in his dog, a Labrador.